Artifact (7 page)

“Okay,” he said. “Ready–?”

“Thank you.” My voice was unsteady, and I fought to find the right words. “For bringing me here. For picking me up.”

Sid blinked, “Thank me later, after you’ve held up your end of the bargain.”

“Which was?”

“You said if I could get you in there, you’ll fix all this. Fix my memory. Fix the city.” He put his hand on the door handle. Hundreds of zombies were already within lunging distance of Sid’s car. As soon as my foot hit the pavement, a white blaze of discontinuity ripped through my chest, and the world changed again. And the world changed again. And the world changed again. And the world changed again. And the world changed again. And the world changed again. And the world changed again.

5.

When it came to dreams, I realize that I had no frame of reference. I knew of a dream as one thing, completely separate from the waking world and yet wholly similar with respect to the shape and context of the people, places and objects therein. This is the way I thought
it was – when one moment I was running with Sid toward the
CEM,
with zombies spilling out of everything around us, my lungs pumping fire out of my chest as I ran
–
and suddenly seeing myself back in my bedroom, bleeding out beside my bed. This is what it was like:

Sid and I reached the door, and he said, ‘hurry.’ I punched my code on the key–pad, swiped my card–key, gave my thumbprint, heard the two notes chime admittance, and pulled on the handle and – Nothing. I glanced up at the double doors and realized that they were barricaded from the inside – someone removed a steel banister from its floor–bolted mooring and wedged it between the door handles. Stacks of work–tables, desks, filing–cabinets and office–chairs were piled in front of the doors, floor to ceiling. Shots from Sid’s gun rang out across roadway–

–I saw myself lying on the floor next to my bed. The blood I thought had clotted was flowing freely onto the floor around me. My eyes were hollow and terrified. On my dresser, the pink stuffed animal that Alice left me at the hospital was crusted with an old bloody handprint–

–I was in the lab turning the artifact in the same direction as a tiny strip of luminescence far above what I could perceive, as the light randomly seemed to change direction – I keyed in the newest axis as fast as I could in order to keep up. Alice gave me a thumbs–up, and then I heard that sound of groaning metal – and then the walls began to melt–

–I was at an emergency defense assembly in Washington, trying to speak over the rising din of experts, pointing out that the hum? That tiny, almost inaudible hum? It changed pitch when I moved it. Someone rushed out of the room and returned a few moments later carrying a transceiver and an oscilloscope and there it was, like a steady stream of code, a pattern of electronic blips, hidden in a packet of data within a separate frequency, a message from a long dead civilization on Mars–

–And it kept going. My realities kept changing, over and over and over until I was absolutely, irrevocably certain that I was dreaming, and then–

A doctor was studying a wall–screen across from me.

“Lance,” He said. “Are you awake?”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to move, but I couldn’t. I wanted to get up and run to the room at the end of the hall where I saw the glowing letter
M
– but I couldn’t do that either.

I saw Alice standing at the window holding a pink stuffed animal. The doctor tapped an icon on the wall–screen and then went to leave. “Do you need anything?” He asked Alice.

“No, thank you.”

We were alone. I tried moving, blinking, grunting, but I couldn’t. I was there again, completely paralyzed, listening to the ventilation sputter.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” Her voice was quiet and faint, but clear.

I can hear you, Alice.
I thought, trying to force the words.

“But if you can, I think it’s important for you to know that I’m having a hard time trying to understand why things had to be this way.”

What do you mean?

“And if you ever wake up, I want you to ask yourself –”

Alice!

“
If this would have succeeded – would you have gone back because you thought it was the right
thing to do? Because it was something in accordance with what you believed to be moral and true–” She set the stuffed animal on the sill. “Or would you have gone back simply because you were ordered to?”

She moved toward the door, watching her feet. Her hair hung in front of her eyes, blocking them from view. I desperately wanted to make eye contact, to let her know that I was there and that I was listening.

“Would you go back because it was your choice, or because it was how you were programmed?”

I don’t understand!
I tried screaming.

“So long, Lance.” She said, “If you can, remember that none of this was personal.”

And I suddenly realized that there was a small glimmer of light which connected everything – the hospital, my paralysis, my burn, the artifact, Patrick shooting Joseph in the car, bleeding to death by my bed, the zombies, Sid, Alice, the melting walls, the lake, the sounds of groaning metal and the glowing letter
M
– I was so concerned with trying to figure out what was happening that I hadn’t stopped to consider
why
. Why was this happening, and what did everything have to do with everything else? Maybe that slipping of realities wasn’t as random as I initially thought. Maybe I hadn’t been asking myself the right questions.

What did each dream have in common with the others?

The answer of course was the artifact and me.

The artifact and I were the only constants.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that all paths, all avenues led back to the artifact and the experiment.

And I finally knew what I had to do. In every dream, in every hallucination, wherever I found myself, I had to make my way back to the artifact. Everything depended on this simple, universally lateral truth – the various worlds that I was falling through weren’t
real, and the only way to find reality again was to get back to the artifact.

Not for the first time in that vision, the world blasted into a singularity of potential–

6.

I shot upright in my bed with my lips peeled back, as if I were about to scream. I could feel the blood pooling around me again. I sat trembling under my tangled, sweat–soaked covers, and hoped that I wasn’t bleeding to death. A warm hand enclosed my shoulder. “Lance,” Alice said, lying beside me. “Lance – what?” She slurred her words somewhat. Panic ripped her away from deep sleep. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I clenched my teeth, biting down on my courage until I felt comfortable opening my eyes. “This isn’t real…”

“You were dreaming,” she said. “I’m right here – shh. Go back to sleep.”

She gently rubbed my arm and said, “Jesus, you’re soaked.” She yawned, pushed herself to the night-stand and checked the alarm clock. Her hair a disheveled nimbus of thicker shadow in the dark bedroom, her eyes wide and almost lambent, a vague crease of worry between her brows.

“I’m not dreaming this…?”

“No, no you’re in bed now. You were asleep.”

Alice sat up next to me and gently caressed my stomach.

“I don’t have a burn,” I said, inspecting my chest. I peeled the sheets back and made myself look. The covers were stained only with the sweat that made my sleepwear stick to my skin.

“Did you get burned in your dream?”

“I thought,” I said. “I thought I was…”

I looked over my bedroom. The curtains were open, and the moon spilled onto the floor. A warm night. I gave a sigh of ease that threatened to become a shudder.

We were both pretty awake now. “Tell me about it.”

“I… I feel as if I’ve been dreaming for years,” I hesitated. “Maybe even decades. It was the worst nightmare I have ever had.”

“Let’s talk about it,” she said. “It’ll help you fall back asleep.”

I eased back into my pillow and pushed the damp sheets away. “I don’t even know where to start.”

She cuddled a bit closer and kissed me. “Give it a shot.”

“The last thing I remember,” I said. “Was you–”

FIVE

1.

I stopped.

When Alice kissed me, I remembered a moment we had in the lab. And as I remembered it, I latched onto another thought, somewhat like the memory of falling and knocking my head onto the ground, or when Joseph, Patrick and I crashed into the lake. A slight glimpse into a margin of a moment, nothing written into that margin, nothing gained. Inside that margin, in that lack, there was something that seemed vague but honest.

There were times when Alice would walk past while we worked and her hip or hand would brush me in the most intimate way. I would often think about it long after she was gone. I always wanted that to be more than just a touch. I remember always wanting us to be more than what we were. I would often daydream about what life would be like with her, because she was brilliant and beautiful. When I think about her now, all I feel is suspicion. Somewhere, somehow, deep down she terrified me.

2.

I wrapped my arm around Alice, and she snuggled a bit closer. “I was dreaming that we were together,” I said. “You know, intimate.”

“This was your nightmare?” She asked, playfully slapping my chest.

“No,” I said. “This was in the labs. I would fantasize about us getting intimate there
.
”

“Now that sounds more like it,” she said, fighting the gentle pull of sleep. “But why would that be so bad?”

“Now that’s the question, isn’t it?” I intoned, “Why would that be such a bad thing?”

“You’re fucking with me?”

“Hear me out,” I said. “I was fantasizing about us being intimate because we weren’t together in that way. We are not together in that way. Understand?”

The curtains danced away from the breeze and the moon crept upon the dresser. Slight tendrils of memory, of ripping myself open in front of the holo–mirror and bleeding to death tugged at the forefront of my thoughts.

“I don’t,” she said, getting a bit upset.

“Why are you in my bed?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are we married? How long have we known each other?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she pushed herself out of my arms. “We’re together. Isn’t that enough?”

“Together how? For how long?”

She sat, staring at me.

“Do we share our lives? Share the bills, etcetera?”

“Yes.”

“We live together?”

She shrugged, “yes.”

“We’ve been living together for a while?”

“Yes, Lance!”

“How old am I?”

She hesitated.

“It’s a simple question.”

She closed her mouth and looked away.

“How long has it been since the accident?” I rubbed my chest, which showed no sign of any burn.

She folded her arms and clenched her jaw, locking her eyes onto the small cascading waterfall across from us – which was the holo–mirror’s default setting when not in use.

“When you came to visit me at the hospital, what did you mean when you said that this wasn’t personal?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Which part – the accident or the hospital visit?”

She settled against the headboard and crossed her arms.

“Alice,” I gently pulled her chin so that she would look at me. “When you sent me away on the elevator, I heard you scream.”

She looked through me. She might as well have been carved out of stone. Her face was blank.

“Why did you scream?”

She remained blank and unattached as I repeated the question.

I pushed myself out of bed, and stepped into a puddle of blood that stretched from the side of the bed to the holo–mirror. I heard a screeching crash outside followed by a scream. I rushed to the window and saw that my neighborhood was burning. My neighbors were running away from their zombified relatives, as they dragged themselves to the closest living thing they could sink their teeth into. A flaming police car sped past, and a helicopter swooped by overhead. A few moments later I began to hear soft, consistent pounding on the first level, followed by a series of lifeless moans.

3.

“I don’t know how long it has taken me,” I said. “But I think I may have figured out what’s going on.”

I mopped up the blood with a sheet. Alice still sat in the same spot with her arms crossed, as if she were upset. I knelt on the floor beside the bed. She was frowning, moving her gaze back and forth between the blood on the floor and the medicine on the nightstand.

“I’ve been dreaming this whole time,” I said.

I waited a few moments, gathering my thoughts while Alice continued not saying anything.

“I must have detonated the artifact, and I’ve been either dreaming or hallucinating ever since. I haven’t woken up yet. I just keep fantasizing that I have, over and over again.”

“This is your nightmare?” She finally asked. “Lying in bed with me?”

“Don’t you hear that?” I waved at the pounding downstairs, and the screams outside. “This is all a nightmare. Waking at the hospital, watching Patrick shoot Joseph, crashing into the lake–” I point at the blood on the floor, “accidentally ripping open my burn and bleeding to death, the zombie apocalypse, Sid rescuing me with his car, the loud noises at the hospital, and waking next to you. The truth, however…” I tried to be clearer. “Each reality has never happened. Not really. In reality, I’m either lying on the floor in the lab, or in a hospital bed, comatose, and this is all a dream.”

Alice shook her head and looked away.

“Okay,” I said. “You don’t know my age, because that’s something I don’t know myself – and you don’t know or understand anything as well as I do.” I continued, “Because you’re not Alice. I’m not sitting on the floor talking
to Alice. You are a projection of my dream
of you. In essence, I’m having a conversation with a sub aspect of myself.” I gave her a grim smile, more from the satisfaction of putting the math together than anything else. The fact that Alice looked absolutely crushed didn’t help matters.

“It’s okay, Alice.” I said softly, “It’s not your fault. You don’t know how old I am, because I don’t know how old I am.”

She finally looked at me, and I could see tears running down the crease of her cheek. “How could you not know how old you are?”

I helplessly lifted my hands. “I don’t know. Whatever happened must have been bad enough for me to forget something like that.”

“What does that make me?”

I slowly let my hands fall back into my lap. “The real Alice might be sitting at my bedside,” I said. “Beside my unconscious body, waiting for me to wake up.”

“That’s a nice thought.”

“To be honest,” I said. “Since all this started, I’ve had the most calming dreams with you.”

“Except you said you heard me scream.”

“Yes.”

“What if this is real, though,” she said. “What if I really am in trouble? What if this is just a different kind of real? I was with you during the experiment, remember? For all you know, this could be just as much my dream as it is yours.”

“That,” I said, “is an interesting thought.”

“I still don’t think it changes anything.”

“No, I guess it doesn’t. We’re in trouble, that much we can
be sure of.”

“This is about the artifact.” She said finally, wiping tears from her eyes.

“Yes…”

“So, it’s reasonable to think that this is something other than a dream.”

“It’s reasonable, sure.”

“Well,” she took a deep, shuddery breath. “I can’t decide what would be worse.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, and before either of us could say anything, we heard a door downstairs finally splinter and give way. The moaning grew louder. Alice got out of bed and pulled the curtains back – the street out front was so thick with the multitudes of walking corpses that I couldn’t see the ground. “What do we do now?”

I shrugged, “We either try to make our way back to the artifact,” I said. “Or wake up.”

“But you still think those things will hurt us,” she said.

I thought about it. I thought about Joseph’s corpse lunging toward me at the lake, and how Patrick threw himself between us. Something deep inside told me that they would hurt me. I retained some logical, objective and mechanical instinct, which knew that even though this was a dream, if those things were ever able to sink their teeth into me, any chances I had of waking up would be gone.

“Maybe it’s a metaphor,” I said.

“The zombies?”

“Yeah…”

“A metaphor for what?” She asked.

I cut her off. “We can’t let any of those things bite us,” I said. “We probably shouldn’t even let them touch us–”

“But you said–”

“Don’t ask me how I know, but I know.” I pictured the deflated shape of Joseph’s head. “Trust me.”

4.

I had an idea. After Alice and I barricaded the bedroom door, I spent some time developing a plan–of –action for making my way back to the labs. The zombies didn’t seem to understand the concept of stairs, at least at that point. They were content with stumbling into each other and knocking over furniture for the time being. So we had time to think, with the sound of horror and suffering coming from the street below.

I got the idea from when I spent a week orienteering in Arizona. Below the surface – the beautiful aspects of deep brown with layers of pink and gray alluvium, the scattered fragments of dull green cacti and the massive purple shadows that moved with the clouds – the desert is a miasma of starvation, dehydration and teeth. It’s a labyrinth of pain and suffering if you don’t know what you’re doing. We were constantly told, like a mantra of certainty, that the desert has a way of swallowing most forms of life, leaving little to no evidence of its existence. If you get lost in the desert without a plan, you’re gone.

Half the battle in deciding which direction to go is to first figure out where you are – that’s the most important thing to do, especially if one were lost.

I was apparently lost in the wilderness of my own subconscious. If a dream is not a place like any other, but if it’s still a matter of connecting two points in diverse and unfamiliar terrains, then the mind cannot be cataloged within the context of simply picking a direction, because there was no such thing as direction in this place. Spatial direction in a dream is as much of a psychological construct as a person, let’s say, or a place. I reasoned that I would have to define rules by which to abide and follow. Rules like physics and natural law.

When I thought about it, I realized that these things were sort of filling in anyway without my knowledge, or at least outside
of my awareness. Not only did I take for granted simple things like gravity and weight, I seemingly accepted these things outright, without much effort. Reality had been apparently building itself through my expectations alone.

I had landmarks to navigate by. I had the labs, my house, my neighborhood, the lake, and the hospital –the extent of the mental cartography I outlined since the accident. I had Alice, Patrick, Joseph and Sid – they could even be landmarks. I had my elusive burn, which seemed to arrive and disappear within a system of patterns. It was like plugging variables into a formula – it was like being my old self again – and suddenly I was aware of what direction was up, what I looked like, what language I spoke, and most importantly, what was out of place and fantastic. I wasn’t quite there yet, but figuring out where you were, after all, was the hardest part of figuring out where to go.

I brought this up to Alice before the hallucination started to relocate me again. As reality slipped away, as the bedroom began to swirl into itself, into the curtains, into the blood on the floor, into Alice, I said, “I need a landmark.”

“What kind of a landmark?” She asked.

“I don’t know.” I tried to think quickly, as the world continued to collapse. “There was a guy named Sid who helped me the last time.”

“Who’s that?”

“He picked me up just before I was about to get eaten by a pack of zombies.”

“A landmark.”

“In this place,” I suggested, “people can be landmarks. Sid, for example, led me to the labs.”

“Maybe you should start there.”

The last thing I said before the world changed again was, “In case I don’t see you again, there’s a gun in the closet. Make your way to the labs.”

5.

–The world coalesced into box around me, and I remembered hearing Alice scream.

The elevator opened when it reached the ground floor, and I quickly punched the button for floor one; the memory of her scream was suddenly visceral and urgent. The doors closed, and for what felt like an eternity, I rode in silent, dreadful anticipation. I wondered if this was the same Alice from my last dream – I wasn’t certain how things functioned here, or if I was the only one who retained memories between one reality and the next.

I was out of the doors before I realized that they had opened. On the wall directly across from the elevator, there was a bloody handprint streaking around the corner toward the filing department, which gave me pause – the hallway was narrow, dark and silent, and the beige painted walls organized a claustrophobic mixture of gray and black shadow – the only source of light came from the filing–room at the end of the hall. If one of those things somehow made its way into the building, I didn’t want to be blindly stumbling into it. I found the light switch, but it didn’t work.

The light in the elevator suddenly flickered and died. I punched the button, and nothing. Emergency lights switched on.

Silence – then I heard another scream, muffled, as if it were coming from one of the offices.

I ran, desperately hoping that this version of Alice would still be alive by the time I reached her. I took the corner at a dead sprint and tripped over an uneven burl in the carpet. I took the fall on my shoulder and tried immediately scrambling back to my feet, and as I moved to my knees, my hand touched something clammy and organic. I probed the roll of carpet, and realized that it wasn’t part of the carpet at all. I felt my way through the shape of a widow’s peak, two holes and a forehead. It was one of the custodians that had been vacuuming the hallways earlier. Dead.

I rolled him onto his side and saw that someone shot him twice between the eyes. The back of his head was completely missing. My eyes drifted down, and I noticed that his stomach had also been ripped open – I retched and pushed myself away, blinking against the image of ruined strips of flesh and muscle glistening in the floodlights. I took a few moments to spit the taste of uncooked beef out of the mouth.